


Never let me go

by emsylcatac



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Emotional Hurt, F/M, Hopeful Ending, LadyNoir - Freeform, Post-Reveal Pre-Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, i mean it's angsty and kinda hurts but it's still hopeful at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25019266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emsylcatac/pseuds/emsylcatac
Summary: “I’m still in love with you. And I’m all for us to… to hug and comfort each other when we need but not when it feels… when it feels like you…”Like you love me,he doesn’t say. But she can hear it and she wouldn’t even be able to deny it if he were to let the words escape him.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 24
Kudos: 139





	Never let me go

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks Alizeh (maketea) & Lisa (Ladybuginettes) for beta-reading it ♥

Ladybug wraps her arms tighter around his torso and nuzzles further into his neck, until she can feel his hair tickle the tip of her nose and her cheeks. She feels so good, like that, half spread on him, and yet the sitting position on the roof she’s in should not make her feel this comfortable. She rearranges her legs so they’re now half in his lap, too, and lets out a happy sigh, closing her eyes.

“Hum…”

Her eyes snap open.

“Could you…”

She can feel him struggle to formulate what he wants to say. But by now, she already knows what his next words are going to be. So before he can let them out, she gets off of him, she should have remembered.

“Sorry,” she simply says.

“It’s okay.” The tremor in his voice says otherwise.

Of _course_ , it’s not okay. She knows that.

“It’s just that…” he sighs. “I’m not ready yet.”

She hums in acknowledgment, because she isn’t sure that she can trust her voice right now. She’s not looking at him; she doesn’t feel his eyes on her, either.

“I’m trying. I _promise you_ that I’m _really_ trying,” he goes on.

She doesn’t want him to make this promise; she doesn’t want him to try.

“But...knowing who you are now…” he sighs again. “It doesn’t exactly help my feelings to _go_ , you know.”

It’s unfair how he can be so open about them with her.

“I’m still in love with you.”

Really, _really_ unfair.

He chuckles without humour. “In fact, it’s only been making it worse. I’ve been falling deeper and deeper and… and it’s not fair to you,” he whispers the last words.

And _oh, how much_ she knows how he feels. How she understands him so, _so_ well. Because it’s the same for her, too. She almost snorts in agreement, before catching herself and settling for smiling sadly instead. She still can’t bring herself to look at him.

“And I’m all for us to… to hug and comfort each other when we need but not when it feels… when it feels like you…”

 _Like you love me_ , he doesn’t say. But she can hear it and she wouldn’t even be able to deny it if he were to let the words escape him. She brings her knees closer to her and hugs them— a small compensation from when she was hugging _him_ and it doesn’t quite do the job, but she has nothing else to cuddle instead.

For what must be the hundredth time since she knows who he is, she’s cursing herself for doing the ‘right thing’. She could ignore it; _oh_ , how she could ignore his blue eyes and his words and herself as well as the _whole world_ frozen and pretend it didn’t happen because… because _no_ , it did _not_ happen—not in this timeline, anyway— but she can’t. She can’t because she must have seen it for a reason, and ignoring the warning would be very, very selfish of her.

...She really wants to be selfish now.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” he whispers.

He shouldn’t have to feel sorry for something he has no control over.

“I promise you that I’m working on it and that I won’t let my feelings get in our way.”

 _He promises_ , again.

Sometimes she thinks that maybe, _maybe_ she could tell him. She could tell him that she loves him too, and that the reason why she can’t let herself be with him now is because of what the future might be. But if she does, she doesn’t quite trust herself to not listen to him and cave if he were to tell her that it wouldn’t happen. If he were to _promise her_ that he wouldn’t let it happen.

So she keeps quiet.

She notices somewhere in the back of her mind that breathing is starting to get a little harder with each passing seconds. The lights of the city she was stubbornly fixating on suddenly get blurrier, their colours merging together the more she tries to focus.

She really, really needs him now.

A warm hand touches her shoulder, as if answering her prayers. “Little bug?”

She can feel him looking at her now, but she doesn’t dare look back at him just yet.

“I’m there for you when you need me, you know. And even when you don’t need me, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere. Talk to me. You can tell me what’s bothering you and…” he trails off.

She turns her head towards him. She can distinguish his form through her tears, and his arms opened to her.

“...and if you just want a hug, you can ask m— _oof._ ”

She doesn’t need to be told twice. She lets her tears fall more freely now, sobbing silently and clinging to him as much as she thinks he’d allow her. His arms wrap around her, and the feeling they bring is both satisfactory and painful—a reminder of what she can’t completely have yet.

 _Or ever_ , a voice murmurs in her head, _if he keeps his promise_.

She _hates_ this promise.

“If you needed a comfort hug tonight, you should have said so since the beginning. You know I wouldn’t have denied it, ma Buguinette.”

That wasn’t why she had cuddled to him in the first place. She had just wanted to be close to the person she loves and enjoy the cool and quiet night with him. But now she needs his comfort.

“What about you?” she manages to say.

“Don’t worry about me. You’re the one who’s hurting.”

He’s patting her hair now. It’s _so_ unfair.

“It’s hurting you, too.”

He squeezes her one time.

“It’s nothing. I’ll just have to… delay letting go of you for a few more days,” he chuckles silently.

She can breath for a few more days, then. She’ll live with that.

 _“You could also never let me go,”_ she mouths against his chest—not that he can hear it.

**Author's Note:**

> ....aaaaand Ladybug realised it was a very stupid stupid idea so the next day she comes and kiss him on the mouth and they live happily ever after, yeeepeeee everyone's happy (except Gabe because Gabe is never happy)


End file.
